beyond the stage of nervous
speculation. They inhabited a little house in a western suburb, a house
illumined with every domestic virtue; but scarcely a dozen persons crossed
the threshold within a twelvemonth. Rose's two or three friends were, like
herself, mistrustful of the world. One of them had lately married after a
very long engagement, and Rose still trembled from the excitement of that
occasion, still debated fearfully with herself on the bride's chances of
happiness. Her own marriage was an event so inconceivable that merely to
glance at the thought appeared half immodest and wholly irrational.

Every winter Mr. Whiston talked of new places which he and Rose would visit
when the holidays came round; every summer he shrank from the thought of
adventurous novelty, and ended by proposing a return to the same western
seaside-town, to the familiar lodgings. The climate suited neither him nor
his daughter, who both needed physical as well as moral bracing; but they
only thought of this on finding themselves at home again, with another long
year of monotony before them. And it was so good to feel welcome,
respected; to receive the smiling reverences of tradesfolk; to talk with
just a little well-bred condescension, sure that it would be appreciated.
Mr. Whiston savoured these things, and Rose in this respect was not wholly
unlike him.

To-day was the last of their vacation. The weather had been magnificent
throughout; Rose's cheeks were more than touched by the sun, greatly to the
advantage of her unpretending comeliness. She was a typical English maiden,
rather tall, shapely rather than graceful, her head generally bent, her
movements always betraying the diffidence of solitary habit. The lips were
her finest feature, their perfect outline indicating sweetness without
feebleness of character. Such a girl is at her best towards the stroke of
thirty. Rose had begun to know herself; she needed only opportunity to act
upon her knowledge.

A train would take them back to the seaside. At the railway station Rose
seated herself on a shaded part of the platform, whilst her father, who was
exceedingly short of sight, peered over publications on the bookstall.
Rather tired after her walk, the girl was dreamily tracing a pattern with
the point of her parasol, when some one advanced and stood immediately in
front of her. Startled, she looked up, and recognised the red-haired
stranger of the inn.

'You left these flowers in